Though most employment lawyers never thought of accrued sick leave benefits as a wage, it took only one, armed with a big enough sick leave balance, to test the question in Massachusetts’ highest legal venue. To the surprise of few, the law left the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in the same form lawyers and lower court judges have long interpreted it. While accrued sick leave remains a benefit that employers now need to provide under Massachusetts law, it is not a wage that must be paid to departing employees who have accrued it on the company’s books.

The case’s high stakes lend a clue as to why it went as far as it did. At issue was $46,755 in accrued sick leave under a plan at the Massachusetts Port Authority. Though the benefits were ultimately paid to the employee, the check was cut about a year after he retired due to an arbitration proceeding that ultimately went his way. Under the Massachusetts Wage Act, wages due to employees must be paid promptly at departure from employment. The Plaintiff pressed a theory that this provision of the law was broken by the late payment and that he was consequently entitled to three times the amount of accrued sick pay owed, plus reimbursement for all legal fees he incurred to collect his pay.

The SJC would have none of it, however. It cited to the Act’s definition of the term “wages,” which includes holiday pay, vacation pay and earned commissions but does not mention sick leave benefits. The court then contrasted the purposes of sick and vacation leave policies, noting that only the latter could be used for any purpose. Sick leave generally is not wages as a result, the court concluded, and could not be considered a wage under Massport’s specific policy of paying out accrued, unused sick leave under some circumstances. Those conditions made sick time at Massport a “contingent bonus,” such that it like other bonuses is not a wage covered by the Wage Act.

Dissatisfied with the recent increase of the Massachusetts minimum wage to $11/hour and its failed efforts to get the state legislature to move the hourly rate to $15, a coalition of community, religious and labor groups has submitted the issue for referendum vote. Assuming the question moves through the process to the November 2018 ballot, Massachusetts voters will decide whether to increase the hourly rate to $15, a move that surely won’t go over well with some business people.

Proponents of the hourly wage increase are unmoved. They believe $15/hour is necessary to allow low paid workers to afford basic necessities such as groceries, housing and heating. As it is, they say, full-time workers earning the current minimum of $11/hour make only about $22,000 per year. About a million Massachusetts workers will benefit if the rate increase is approved, they contend, and most are above the age of 20. They include nursing assistants, childcare providers, and teachers’ aides, the group says. Anticipating objections to the wage hike, the coalition points out that, despite the increase in the minimum wage from $8 to $11 in recent years, the Massachusetts economy continues to grow strongly.

If approved at the ballot box, the minimum wage will increase by $1/hour each year for four years, beginning in 2019. The measure will also increase the minimum tip wage from $3.75 to $9/hour during the same 4-year period. Under Massachusetts law, tipped employees may be paid less than minimum if their hourly rate plus the tips they receive are equal to or exceed the minimum hourly wage. On December 21, 2017, the Massachusetts secretary of state confirmed that enough signatures were submitted to support the ballot measure. The proposed wage increase now moves to the state legislature, which will have the option to approve it prior to any voting by the public. If that does not occur by May 2, 2018 or if the governor fails to sign a passed measure into law, proponents of the minimum wage increase will need to obtain another roughly 11,000 signatures from Massachusetts voters by July 4 to place the question on the 2018 ballot.

If a coalition group called Raise Up Massachusetts gets its way, the Commonwealth will soon have a comprehensive new law that provides paid leave to employees for a variety of personal reasons. At the recent deadline for 2018 ballot questions, Raise Up submitted a voter-supported initiative it calls a Family and Medical Leave law. If approved at the polls next November, the new law will provide up to 26 weeks of paid leave annually to Massachusetts employees.

The ballot question divides paid leave into two general categories – “family” and “medical.” Under the former, employees will be entitled to up to 16 weeks of paid family leave each year to care for ill family members, bond with their children, or address military-related emergencies. They’ll be allowed up to 26 weeks to care for a covered service member, as that term is defined by the proposed law. For an employee’s own health condition, he/she will be allowed up to 26 weeks under the medical leave portion of the proposed new law. An employee who uses either family or medical leave will generally need to be restored to the same or a similar job without losing pay or other benefits. Pay will be capped at $1,000 per week.

Wage payments will not come directly from employers under the proposed Family and Medical Leave Law. Instead, a new agency called the Department of Family and Medical Leave will be created to collect employer contributions equal to .63% of employee and independent contractor payrolls. Half of the amount paid by employers can be recouped from workers. The Department of Family and Medical Leave will create regulations to implement and administer the new law. It will make eligibility decisions, pay benefits, and adjust contribution rates periodically as needed.

If voted into law next November, the Family and Medical Leave Law will take effect 18 months later. Contributions to the trust fund, however, will begin on July 1, 2019, roughly a year before the law takes hold. As with other employment laws, the proposed statute bars retaliation against employees who take advantage of its benefits. Any negative change to the terms and conditions of employment within six months of using paid leave will be presumptively retaliatory. Punishment can include up to three times the amount of any lost wages, damages as may be incurred, and reimbursement of legal fees.

It’s no surprise that the reach of Massachusetts’ wage laws is long, and most employers know they need to carefully abide them if they want to avoid potentially dire effects. Still, courts sometimes seem to extend the law’s reach in surprising ways. When that happens, employers to which such rulings apply might first shudder a bit, then step back and review policies to be sure they are doing things properly.

A recent U.S. District Court decision may have such an effect. In Chebotnikov v. LimoLink, the court ruled that a trial was necessary to determine whether limousine drivers are employees or contractors. It went on to also conclude that gratuities charged to customers must be remitted to the drivers under the Massachusetts tips statute. That law requires that service charges or tips from customers “shall be remitted only to the wait staff employees, service employees or service bartenders” who provide the customer service at issue.

What’s interesting here is the award of tips to individuals who may or may not be employees despite the fact that the statute involved appears to apply only to that group. The court seemed moved in large part by the clear intention of the law: to ensure that service workers get the tips that customers intend for them and not their employers to receive. Employers who collect tips or charge costs to customers that might be interpreted as gratuities need not shudder at this ruling, perhaps, but certainly should review their practices to ensure they don’t get caught in the same situation as LimoLink apparently has.

The Supreme Judicial Court this week issued its latest interpretation of the Massachusetts Wage Act, Mass. Gen. L. ch. 150, §§148-150. It ruled that prejudgment interest on unpaid wages and other benefits awarded to employees should be added to judgments at the statutory rate of 12 percent. Importantly, however, the SJC decided that no interest can be awarded on the mandatory triple damage penalties that apply under the Wage Act.

The case is significant both as to its substance and the SJC’s break with a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding prejudgment interest on wages. On substance, the SJC’s ruling will likely result in substantially reduced judgments against employers in some cases. As to federal precedent, the Supreme Court decided in 1945 that employees cannot receive interest on wage judgments under the Fair Labor Standards Act (a federal law dealing with wage payments to employees) because its liquidated damages provision superseded it. In rejecting this logic, the SJC pointed to laws in Massachusetts that require interest at 12 percent annually on damages awards. It concluded that harmonizing the Wage Act with these laws requires a reasonable balance such that interest must be awarded on actual damages awarded but not on triple damage sums. [Read more…]

The U.S. Supreme Court may have accepted a group of cases that will determine whether companies can require their workers to waive class action rights, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be deciding this important question anytime soon. After accepting the cases for review in January, the Court announced that it will not hold oral arguments this term. The cases will be argued in Fall 2017 and decided some time thereafter, perhaps well into 2018.

The significance of this is patent. First, it suggests that the Court may be divided on the class action waiver question and requires a deciding voter. The Court now has only 8 justices in the wake of the Republicans’ 2016 refusal to consider President Obama’s nominee to the bench. They won’t do the same with their own party’s nominee(s), and the Court will surely have 9 members soon. Second, the delay means that uncertainty over class action waivers in employment agreements will remain for some time. This will likely encourage litigation in lower courts over the issue and may cause decisions to be delayed.

It is common today for companies to have their workers sign agreements that include arbitration provisions requiring lawsuits to be pursued individually. This is sometimes impractical due to the small size of a claim, and an employee or independent contractor therefore may seek to bring suit on behalf of others. The Supreme Court has previously found that mandatory arbitration agreements are generally enforceable. It’s now being asked to resolve lower court disagreement about whether federal law allows companies to avoid class action lawsuits through arbitration clauses.

Effective January 1, 2017, the minimum wage for Massachusetts workers rose from $10 to $11 per hour. The new rate applies to almost all employees. For employees who regularly receive tips as part of their pay, the minimum rate is $3.75/hour. Those workers’ total compensation with tips included must be at least $11/hour. All categories of workers remain eligible for overtime pay at 1.5 times their normal rates of pay for hours worked above 40 in a workweek. Some workers are exempt from overtime requirements based on job classifications and administrative requirements.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court today weighed in on the hot topic whether and to what extent the state’s Independent Contractor Statute is exempted as applied to courier drivers and the companies they work for. Like a federal court that ruled on the same question last year, the SJC concluded that the second of the law’s three elements is preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA).

Legal battle over the applicability of Mass. Gen. L. ch. 149, §148B has raged for years, with courier companies seeking to avoid application of what’s referred to as Prong B of the statute – the requirement that all individuals who perform services within a company’s regular course of business be classified as employees. The companies rely on the FAAAA’s restriction against state laws that impact the prices, routes or services of covered businesses. Because Prong B is so broad, they contend, it effectively bars all uses of contractors to make deliveries. This, in turn, forces courier companies to eliminate services, increase costs, alter routes, and make other business changes.

Though two state judges had previously ruled that the entire Independent Contractor Statute was preempted by the FAAAA, the SJC rejected this approach. The law’s first and third elements thus remain intact. In order to avoid classifying their drivers as employees, courier companies must demonstrate that they do not control the performance of their work and that the drivers are customarily engaged in an independent business. There are currently several active cases on this topic, including two class action suits being handled by my office.

In a surprising decision, a judge in the U.S. District Court for Texas not only granted an injunction to 21 plaintiff states that sued to block the U.S. Department of Labor’s overtime updates set to take effect December 1, 2016, he applied his ruling to all 50 states. The result is that, at least for now, employers in Massachusetts need not update pay scales. As long as executive, administrative or professional employees make at least $455/week — the minimum pay requirement now in effect — they will remain exempt from overtime pay requirements.

Judge Amos Mazzant reasoned that the Department of Labor (DOL) could not update the minimum salaries for executives, et. al., because Congress clearly intended the exemption to turn on a duties and not a salary test. Each of the three affected categories or workers carries with it specific criteria for determining applicability, commonly referred to as duties tests. While Judge Mazzant called the Congressional intent in this regard to be so clear that it blocks the DOL from increasing the minimum salary requirement, he did not address the question why or how a DOL regulation has, apparently properly, for years included a minimum salary component for executive, administrative and professional worker overtime exemptions. Indeed, the new DOL rule that was to take effect December 1 seeks to update the minimum salary from $455 to $913 weekly and to implement an automatic pay adjustment mechanism going forward. The court’s November 21, 2016 decision in State of Nevada v. U.S. Department of Labor leaves the old threshold in place.

After failing to pass what’s referred to as a wage theft bill in the recently ended legislative session, the bill’s sponsor is not giving up. According to published reports, Sen. Sal DiDomenico will reintroduce the controversial measure when legislators go back into session in January.

The proposal would make employers that contract with third parties to have labor performed or services provided to them guarantors of the payment of wages earned by the employees of those third parties. It appears to make such employers, in effect, co-employers of the third party’s employees. If, then, the third party doesn’t pay its workers, the company that received the benefit of the workers’ services would be liable. The proposal does not make an exception for companies that pay whatever is due under their third-party contracts. The effect could be, it seems, that company A pays for labor provided to it by company B and is nonetheless liable directly to the company B’s employees because it failed to remit wages earned by them. This could mean company A pays the same penalties — triple damages and legal fees — as it would if it failed to pay its own employees for work performed.

The statute is apparently aimed at upending a practice under which large companies hire third parties to be employers of workers who actually perform services for them directly. Whether it will ever becomes law remains to be seen.